Thinkpads Forum

I have an X61s. This machine makes me miss my X31. I had reliability problems when it was initially purchased, and I had to rebuild the OS, reinstall apps, etc. 20 hours shot. Better, but not optimal. Handrest is an oven. The TP fan program helps considerably, but it's still a major issue.

Now the battery is a problem. About half the time, when the machine is hibernated, the battery charge decays. The rest of the time, the machine can go days without a material drop in apparent battery charge. For example, hibernated last night, and now, some 10 hours later, battery charge down 25%. If I put the machine into standby, the battery charge will typically decay to near 0 in less than 24 hours. I have tried both standard and the intelligent battery/power management schemes, with no difference.

I am missing something. Board search not helpful.

Any advice?

Thanks.

are you using Vista? is the ssytem waking up during the night to do maintainance but then failing to go back to sleep? Check the event viewer to se if anything is shown during the times when it's supposed to be off.

XP. No maintenance tasks waking device.

SHoTTa35 wrote:are you using Vista? is the ssytem waking up during the night to do maintainance but then failing to go back to sleep? Check the event viewer to se if anything is shown during the times when it's supposed to be off.

The X61s has a BIOS option to keep USB ports powered even when it is turned off. If that option is enabled in your BIOS and if you have USB devices plugged in during the "off" period, then either turn off the BIOS setting or unplug the USB devices.

EOMtp wrote:The X61s has a BIOS option to keep USB ports powered even when it is turned off. If that option is enabled in your BIOS and if you have USB devices plugged in during the "off" period, then either turn off the BIOS setting or unplug the USB devices.

Option disabled in BIOS already. I always do so, to maximize battery life. And, I very rarely use USB ports on this box.

Sigh...

Thanks.

As you know, "Hibernate" turns a machine off -- as off as if you removed all power. There might be something wrong with the battery, but I doubt it. The only other explanation is that the machine is not really hibernating. You can test this by noting if the battery depletes if you do "Shut down" rather than "Hibernate".

Once you determine if "Hibernate" is the culprit, you can fix the Windows XP hibernation issue.

Note that there is a hibernation bug in Windows XP which affects machines with >2GB memory. If you have >2GB and you have not installed the patch, then do so. Here is the link:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... laylang=en

Will experiment with shutdown. Given nearly 4 minute boot time, I try to avoid this, but will do so.

Box is 2G. Hotfix should not affect me.

EOMtp wrote:As you know, "Hibernate" turns a machine off -- as off as if you removed all power. There might be something wrong with the battery, but I doubt it. The only other explanation is that the machine is not really hibernating. You can test this by noting if the battery depletes if you do "Shut down" rather than "Hibernate".

Once you determine if "Hibernate" is the culprit, you can fix the Windows XP hibernation issue.

Note that there is a hibernation bug in Windows XP which affects machines with >2GB memory. If you have >2GB and you have not installed the patch, then do so. Here is the link:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... laylang=en

See my experience at http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... =hibernate

I had to turn off wake on LAN twice - once in windows, once in BIOS

Wake on LAN already off in both BIOS and Hardware Manager

Use the power manager to try a battery reset. If it fixes the problem, great. If it causes the battery to finally fail, try this:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 67765.html

So noted. On my way out of town to a meeting. Will try upon my return.

Thanks much.

SzDoc wrote:Wake on LAN already off in both BIOS and Hardware Manager

This seems to have worked for some (see above) ruuning XP. I'm running Vista (3 GB) and have exactly your problem. My workaround until a proper solution appears: undock the battery for a moment after putting the machine into hybernation. Works for me everytime.

Andreas